


Conversations

by WriterGreenReads



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Mild Blood, season 3 of enterprise, unlikely friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 15:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20084560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriterGreenReads/pseuds/WriterGreenReads
Summary: Malcolm Reed and Mr. Fell have a chat under some unlikely circumstances.





	Conversations

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted this and so I wrote it for me. You can read it though.

“You’re not  _ real _ , Mr. Fell,” Malcolm said. The insistence sounded almost plaintive this time, something he blamed on the blood-loss if for no other reason than to justify his current lightheaded state. 

“Why, whatever would make you think that, my dear boy?”

Malcolm sighed and let his head fall back to rest against the rather grimy wall he was propped up against. The breath rattled through his rib cage at the small movement, sending unwelcome licks of pain prickling their way through the plasma burn seared into his side to kindly inform him that it still existed. He squinted at him.

“I am currently being held in an alien jail cell, over 50 light years away from Earth.” He coughed, trying to mask it with his dry tone. “Located in an  _ extremely _ dangerous and volatile part of space known as the Delphic Expanse.” He gestured towards his dimly lit surroundings. “I doubt this is anywhere near your bookshop.”

“Well, everything is near somewhere if you know where to look,” Mr. Fell said, far too cheerfully for Malcolm’s taste. “Though in this case, yes, I suppose I am a bit far from home, aren’t I?”

Malcolm glared as best he could in his current state.

“Oh,  _ fine _ ,” Mr. Fell huffed, rolling his eyes. “ _ Yes, _ I’m not technically here. Happy?” He sat down on a folding chair, primly brushing some imaginary dirt off of his imaginary tartan jacket. 

“Ecstatic,” Malcolm said wryly. That chair didn’t exist either, did it. Oh well. Blood-loss was a hell of a drug, but he didn’t usually have hallucinations quite this vividly. The burn must be more severe than he had originally thought. 

At least Mr. Fell had the courtesy to look properly imaginary. The old-fashioned suit and white hair fell into place exactly as he had remembered from his school years. Faintly translucent with a soft white glow surrounding him, he lent a small amount of light to the otherwise shadowy cell. 

“Goodness,” the bookstore owner remarked, glancing down at Malcolm. “You’re injured quite badly, aren’t you?”

He laughed, though it hurt to laugh, dry and raspy. That’s exactly what he would say, too. Then maybe offer him some hot cocoa and biscuits.

“You always were a bit of a mother hen,” he chuckled breathlessly. “Though I’d never tell you that- I enjoy having my head on my shoulders and Mr. Crowley was even more of one than you.”

Mr. Fell blinked, bemused. 

“Well, Crowley would be pleased to hear that if anything- though I’m sure he would harp on you if only for appearances sake. Do you mind if I fix you up? Best not to tempt fate with alien infections and all that.”

“This is not the first time I’ve been shot, you know.” Malcolm was definitely not complaining at this point. 

Mr. Fell simply raised an eyebrow at him, waiting.

“Yes, yes, alright,” he finally snapped. “But at least have the decency to disappear afterwards. I’m trying not to bleed out- I don’t need my subconscious digging up the Ghosts of Christmas past or whatever the hell is going on here.”

“There’s no need to be rude,” Mr. Fell chided gently. He knelt next to Malcolm on his injured side, carefully moving his hand off the blood-soaked sleeve he had ripped off and pressed over the wound. Malcolm flinched at the touch, both from the twang of his side and the unexpected coolness of the shopkeeper’s hand on his own. 

“There.” Mr. Fell brushed his hand over the burn and it knit itself back together with an itchy feeling. The edges of his tattered uniform fluttered before following suit, the bloodstains leeching out in thin red wisps before dissipating. Malcolm numbly watched, the sudden lack of pain almost euphoric as his headache eased and the iron taste in the back of his throat fled with it. He prodded the now-mended area and glanced back up at Mr. Fell, who looked pleased.

“You realize that I’m still actually actively dying, right? My brain is just fooling itself whilst my internal organs leak out all over their lovely cell floor,” he said.

“Mr. Reed, if everyone was concerned with their current morality at all points in time, they’d never get anything done at all.” Mr. Fell offered him a hand. “Besides, it’s better than extraordinary amounts of pain at the very least.”

Malcolm took the hand grudgingly and let himself be pulled to his feet.

“So what is my subconscious trying to tell me?” he asked. “Besides getting back at me for dismissing Hoshi’s telepathic visitor as stress hallucinations? Because we already got over that.”

With his arms akimbo and a slight pout on his face, Mr. Fell almost looked like a disappointed school teacher telling him off at a parent-teacher conference.

“You know, I was always surprised that someone as pragmatic and unimpressed with the universe as yourself decided to take to the stars chasing little green men,” he sniffed. 

Malcolm snorted.

“Pointy and green they may be,  _ little _ , Vulcan’s are not. And clever witticisms aside, you’re not the only person to scold me for  _ that _ decision.”

“Ah, yes, your father.” Mr. Fell sat down once again, straightening his collar this time. He waved a hand for Malcolm to sit down as well, which he did after contemplating yet another imaginary folding chair for a moment. “How  _ is _ he doing these days? Still in the Navy?”

“Never left,” Malcolm shrugged. “Still as much of as bastard as ever. Still eternally disappointed I’m not following in his footsteps.”

“Come now, it can’t be that bad, can it?”

“Worse,” Malcolm admitted, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. Now that he wasn’t thinking about how much he was dying, the several days of no sleep was catching up to him with all the haste and intent of an enraged rhinoceros. “When we were back on Earth, I- I called him and Mum to check up on the two of them after the attack. It just turned into a fight. It always does.”

Mr. Fell was quiet, but the friendly sort of quiet when one was listening and assuring you as much.

“My old man thinks I’m deluding myself playing astronaut, and then I get back to Enterprise to find that apparently Captain Archer doesn’t think too highly of my skill set either,” he said bitterly. “So Major Hayes and the Macos are here to pick up the  _ slack _ .”

There was silence, long and tumultuous, Malcolm biting his tongue as he stared at the crackled stone face of the far wall, wondering how he had let all the bile and anger surge forth so suddenly. He was  _ better _ than that. He was the head security officer of the flagship of Starfleet, on a mission to save his entire  _ planet _ . He didn’t have the luxury of baring his emotions, even it was to a figment of his own imagination. 

But then again, things had always felt easier to say around Mr. Fell. For years, Malcolm had wondered why. Why it was easier to admit things to himself in a dusty, archaic shop to a man who simply listened, than anywhere else in the universe, on Earth or off it. 

“I defected, you know,” Mr. Fell said suddenly.

Malcolm blinked.

“What?”

Mr. Fell smiled, a wry twist of his lips that was far different than his usual expression. “I defected. I was supposed to be a soldier, brimming with righteous fury and divine wrath, striking down my enemies on the battlefield. I suppose you could say it ran in the family.”

“You were in the Armed Forces?” Malcolm said, perhaps a smidgen insulting with the amount of incredulity he managed to pack into the question. Mr. Fell simply chuckled, apparently having heard the actual question being posed.

“I may be soft now, but that was a choice over a long period of time, I assure you. Long story short, I ended up telling my side that I didn’t want to fight. I didn’t want to be their soldier. Practically told them to stuff it.”

“That couldn’t have gone well.” Malcolm frowned. “How did you not get  _ court-martialed _ ?”

Mr. Fell rubbed his chin, bemused.

“Well I suppose I did, in a fashion. But that honestly is not that important right now- I was making a point with all this.”

“Is the point that we’re both bastards disappointing our parents and everyone else around us? Because that’s not exactly making me feel any better.”

“For the All Mighty’s sake,  _ no _ . If you want misery, talk to Crowley. He’d love another chance to complain with you.”

“I’ll be sure to tell him,” Malcolm sighed, closing his eyes. “You know, if we don’t fail horribly on this mission and thus become responsible for the extinction of the human race.”

“You are  _ not _ responsible,” Mr. Fell said.

Malcolm paused at that, opening his eyes again to look at his unlikely cellmate. The shopkeeper was solemn and still, eyes solidly fixed on him in return. Perhaps it was simply a trick of the light or his imagination, but the blue of his eyes shone silver, luminescent in the dim light.

“People are simply people, Mr. Reed.” He was quiet as he said this, so much so that every word seemed to resonate in the chamber with a particular poignance. Something that was important and meant to be heard. “I amended that from “humans are only human” not too long ago in the grand scheme of things, all things considered. And humans, you wonderful, glorious beings, you- have free will.  _ That _ is what makes you so beautiful.”

“We’ve almost blown ourselves to pieces with that free will- several times,” said Malcolm’s mouth, his brain too busy circling like a dazed seagull to properly think over his words.

“Well, yes,” Mr. Fell nodded, a flicker of sorrow creeping into his expression. “War, Famine, Pollution, Death. They will follow humanity until the end of time. Such is the way of things.”

“What are you trying to tell me?” Malcolm finally asked, mouth dry.

“That you are not to blame for the choices others make.”

The silence stretched on after he finished speaking. Slowly, calmly, the cell settled into a comfortable quiet, and if Malcolm closed his eyes, he could almost imagine he was back in that small bookstore on Earth. 

Good lord, he was tired.

“You know, if you’re going to stick around and share in this wonderful experience I’m having, how about you talk about something to distract me from waiting for rescue yet again?”

“Like what, my dear chap?”

“Anything.”

“Well, Ms. Purdin came by the shop a while back and she…”

* * *

“You’re such a drama queen, Angel.”

“ _ I’m _ a drama queen?!  _ I’m _ not the one who refused to follow Enterprise in any other sort of spacecraft and yet couldn’t bring themselves to make any modifications to the Bentley!”

“Ehhh, we’re getting on all right, aren’t we?”

“My dear, you couldn’t even have added life support to the car?”

“We don’t need to  _ breathe _ , Angel.”

“That’s besides the point.”


End file.
